


Those You've Known

by midnightlover



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, spoilers through season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:57:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4834454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightlover/pseuds/midnightlover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not like she actually thought Graham would come back once the curse had broken--dead was dead, after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those You've Known

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I kept thinking about after I finished reading _Shadow of the Queen_ and the implications therein about Red and the Huntsman. Title shamelessly stolen from my favorite Spring Awakening song, which is oddly appropriate for this fic.

“You’re still here.” 

Red’s voice is flat and unsurprised, but quiet in deference to the fact that it’s past midnight and almost as cold as the deep freezer where Granny keeps the lasagna. The two shots of whiskey she mixed in with the diner coffee is all that’s keeping her warm at this point, a little bit of liquid courage to face the one thing she hasn’t let herself think about since Emma broke the curse. 

The granite headstone is as silent as it always is when she comes out here, giving her nothing but the name of the occupant of this particular patch of land underneath the oak tree. She wonders now if maybe she should fix it, maybe get one of the dwarves to add a carving to give some indication that the man that’s buried under it had another life, one that had been just as real as the one he lived here.

It’s not like she actually thought Graham would come back once the curse had broken--dead was dead, after all. No magic in the world could fix that. But now that she remembered who she had been before Storybrooke it was like losing him all over again, the grief of a hundred different possibilities of what might have been if he’d lived long enough to remember. If they’d gotten that second chance. If, if, if...

Peter had been enticing. Billy had been sweet. But Graham...the Huntsman had the soul of a wolf, something she’d never encountered before in someone fully human and was unlikely to find again. And all they'd had were few stolen moments and glances that could have--should have--been more, before he sacrificed himself again to save Snow's life. And hers. But there had been something there in the few precious hours when he'd possessed his heart again, something that stirred a yearning within her that had never gone away. Maybe it could have been True Love. Or maybe it would have just ended in heartache for both of them, forever torn apart by Regina's quest for revenge against the one person who was the closest thing Ruby had ever had to a sister.

“You stupid, noble idiot,” she whispers, glaring at the headstone as if the sheer power of her gaze is enough to transmit her words to the beyond. Twenty-eight years of living the same life over and over again, endless and unchanging until Emma woke them all up. Too late for him, already dead and buried, never to return. Too late for her, knowing that the questions she wants to ask will always remain unanswered. 

Tomorrow, she’ll smile and pour coffee for the dwarves before they hit the mines, laugh at the face Henry makes when Snow and Charming kiss, tease Emma about her addiction to pancakes, scratch Pongo’s ears, and make Granny roll her eyes at least a dozen times. But he’ll be there too, his presence unspoken and unseen but always remembered, a scar on her heart that will never quite heal.

Her gloved fingertips reach out to brush some of the dead leaves off the grey stone before she sighs, watching the steam from her breath rise and disappear into the icy night air. Standing out here all night in the cold thinking about what might have been is stupid--so stupid--but it’s the only closure she’s ever going to get. There would be no happy ending for the huntsman and the wolf-girl--only regrets and dreams buried with him in the frozen ground.

Tonight is for saying goodbye.


End file.
